EDH Staples

[Godtoucher]

Considering the in depth discussion on the matter in a totally unrelated thread and Alex's suggestion I decided to start this thread and post my opinion.

Note: there are exceptions to all of these, but take each as not being an idiot. Ex: I play 1 basic in my deck, but since it's a staple I should play Yavimaya Elder

General:
Sensei's Divining Top
Expedition Map
Kolizek, unless you are graveyard dependent
Duplicant
Solemn Simulacrum


Green:
Yavimaya Elder
Woodfall Primus
Ternastydon

Blue:
Academy Ruins
Overwhelming Intellect
Spelljack, unless you splash blue
Timestretch, unless you don't want to be a dick

Black:
Coffers/Urborg
Demonic/Diabolic/Vampiric/Lilliana/Beseech, you should be tutoring.
Volrath's Stronghold
Myojin of the Gay Gay, unless you don't want to be a dick
Cabal Conditioning, Same

White:
Land Tax
Swords, Path
Akroma
Wrath/Hallowed Burial/Day of Judgment/Akroma's Vengeance/Wrath

Red:
Kikki-Jiki
Comet Storm
And I don't play red, so I can't think of any more

That is my opinion, off of the top of my head.

What did I miss?

[Mike]

I think that your list so far could be trimmed down a bit, as some of them don't necessarily fit into all deck types. That said I can offer some additions to Red:


Banefire
Fault Line
Shattering Spree

Thought Reflection and Mana Reflection absolutely belong.

More importantly, here are the artifacts that I think belong in most decks:

Sol Ring
Oblivion Stone
Mind's Eye
Rings of Brighthearth (almost always good for random reasons)
Vedalken Orrery
Journeyer's Kite
Gilded Lotus
Everflowing Chalice
Mindslaver
Sculpting Steel
Doubling Cube (he who has most mana wins)
Staff of Domination

Mono Colored decks:
Gauntlet of Power
Extraplanar Lens

Yeah, I like a lot of artifacts, but I also like to play mono (or zero) colored decks.

[Kino]

I believe that not all decks in EDH want to run wrath effects even if they are white, so I think any wrath can't be on the list except for O-Stone and Nevy's Disc, mostly because they're colorless and they deal with almost anything.

Also, I've found myself taking Orrery out of several decks lately because it simply doesn't do enough. Progenitus, Uril, and Wrexial don't need to play their non-instants outside their own turns and Progenitus tends to wrath away its own Orrery so often that the card is practically dead. Same for Rings. Yes, it's amazing in a lot of decks, but it is not auto-include.

One card that is being badly overlooked right now is Relic of Progenitus. There are some decks that it is dead against, but even then it will at least replace itself. It devastates decks that rely on their graveyard, and hurts those that enjoy graveyard games. Anger? Glory? Debter's Knell? Revilark? Life from the Loam? Dropping it turn 1 lets you pretty much erase one person's yard until its wrathed away.

As for color specific stuff:
Free spells are awesome and Pact of Negation is a great get-out-of-trouble card in blue.
Indrik Stomphowler is a smaller Woodfall Primus, and just as valuable to green.
If your deck has Plains and creatures (and most decks have the latter), you want to play Glory.
Red wants Vicious Shadows. It's absolute hell against almost every EDH deck out there, even if you don't have creatures of your own. Someone does.
Black - Sorin Markov, unless you're trying to NOT be a dick.

[DazBoot]

I need to read through this later to get a better sense, but quick things I saw:

Sorin is certainly in with the "Dick Clause"

Acidic Slime > Stomphowler 99% of the time

Funny, I want to see how many of these aren't in my EDH decks that play those colors =P

[kosine]

For black, I prefer using the followings other than the cards mentioned above:

Yawgmoth's Will - really powerful
Beacon of Unrest - great recursion spell
Bojuka Bog - easy graveyard-hate

Also about Sorin Markov or other DB cards,
I do not care or criticize other people using them,
but I have certain manner to avoid using the cards or effects that you do not want to play against.
In fact for Sorin, there is always an option to only use his 1st ability.

[vultanphase]

Well, the colorless-producing legendary land super-cycle are all pretty much amazing all the time (excepting perhaps Shivan Gorge). Nobody ever remembers Yavimaya Hollow exists, and the other three are almost why people play land destruction.

Wait, hold on. Lemme read these responses again. Nobody's mentioned Eternal Witness? Green players oughta play Eternal Witness. Point A: Everything you do is good. Doing it again is good. Point B: Creatures are the number one type for "do it again" shenanigans.

Maybe it just goes unsaid, but I done said it anyhow.

[akshay4876]

wait yawgmoth's will is not banned in edh but recurring nightmare is??!
yawgmoth's will is the most broken card of mtg. Considered better than time walk, ancestral recall, black lotus and the moxes. As per this site:
forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=55027
And yes the site mostly discusses vintage but still...

As for a good EDH card i always liked mirarri in any deck that played big spells because doing it twice is always more fun. Mirrariing a time stretch... good times, though not for me.

[Mike]

Yagmoth's Will is primarily good in Vintage because you have access to Black Lotus, Time Walk, and Ancestral Recall. In EDH, it's not necessarily GG, just extremely powerful. It's harder to set up something specific, especially since they banned Gifts Ungiven. I still wouldn't argue against its ban, though.

[Athansor]

Solemn and Duplicant aren't necessaries. Duplicant could maybe go into Visara if I did some poking around, but it wouldn't be a big improvement. And Solemn has no place in the deck.

[fredcoleaa]

Recurring Nightmare is worse than Will. Will is crazy but has major restrictions.

I'd suggest Woodfall Primus shouldn't be on the list.

I also nominate O-ring for the white list. There should be a gold list too.

Also, you're overlooking the best multiplayer card in all of Magic: Syphon Mind.

[vultanphase]

Honestly, I don't like O-Ring in the format. Certainly, versatile removal is fantastic, but the drawback is almost always relevant. If you hit anything worthwhile, the next Disk, O-Stone, Planar Cleansing, Vengeance or what-have-you not only wipes out what's on the board, it immediately gives back the problem card to its owner, giving them a board presence (and usually a good one if the card was worth using removal on) when everyone else has nothing.

[fredcoleaa]

Oh, maybe my view is distorted by my own play group.

I got kinda o-ring happy bc i see alot of swords of f&i and l&s

[roguenewb]

Vindicate or return to dust will do most of what you are seeing Oring do, and without giving it back later.

[Chris]

Alright lets see what I can think up, also I'm not completely sure what definition for "staple" we are using.

White: Tithe, Adarkar Valkyrie, austere command, oblation

Blue: Mulldrifter, Trinket mage, vedalken plotter, shifting borders, political trickery, ophidian, rhystic study, hinder, honden of the seeing winds

Black: Puppeteer Clique, oversold cemetery, phyrexian arena, ambitions cost, night's whisper, sign in blood,

Red: Insurrection

Green: Regrowth, Restock, revive, Mana Reflection, Crop Rotation, Sylvan Scrying, Gaea's Cradle, Reap n Sow, Harmonize, Rofellos, Woodripper, spawnwrithe, reap, Genesis, Tooth and Nail, Chord of Calling, Defense of the Heart, ohran viper, primal command, molder slug, protean hulk, worldly tutor, summoner's pact

Artifact: Armillary Sphere (really should go in every edh), Arkoma's Memorial, Darksteel Forge, Eldrazi Monument, both swords, lightning greeves, mask of memory, erratic portal, crystal shard, skull clamp

Lands: thawing glaciers, strip mine/wasteland/ghost quarter/tectonic edge, deserted temple, charge lands, dustbowl, exotic orchard

[Kino]

Protean Hulk is banned.

Also, I'm not sold on Armillary Sphere either. Darksteel forge has no place here at all, being that it requires a specific deck type and this list is supposed to be cards that any deck that can play them should. Same for Eldrazi Monument.

As for Woodfall Primus, it's an answer to everything that isn't a creature... twice. It should be on every green list except very dedicated aggro and combo. Seeing as combo ignores this list entirely anyways, it's pretty stapley. Also, I'll agree that slime is usually better than stomphowler, but I think both still belong on the list. Destroy your SoFaI I have a 4/4 or a 2/2 deathtouch is a really strong play and neither will ever be dead in your hand.

[roguenewb]

The 4/4 was alot better before lands picked up a lot of power in club. As the metagame developed the power of the slime increased, while stomphowler faded. Of course, as walkers get better and better, Mold Shambler is quickly replacing both of them.

[roguenewb]

Mar 8, 2010 14:06:06 GMT -5 Chris said:

Alright lets see what I can think up, also I'm not completely sure what definition for "staple" we are using.

White: Tithe, Adarkar Valkyrie, austere command, oblation

Blue: Mulldrifter, Trinket mage, vedalken plotter, shifting borders, political trickery, ophidian, rhystic study, hinder, honden of the seeing winds

Black: Puppeteer Clique, oversold cemetery, phyrexian arena, ambitions cost, night's whisper, sign in blood,

Red: Insurrection

Green: Regrowth, Restock, revive, Mana Reflection, Crop Rotation, Sylvan Scrying, Gaea's Cradle, Reap n Sow, Harmonize, Rofellos, Woodripper, spawnwrithe, reap, Genesis, Tooth and Nail, Chord of Calling, Defense of the Heart, ohran viper, primal command, molder slug, protean hulk, worldly tutor, summoner's pact

Artifact: Armillary Sphere (really should go in every edh), Arkoma's Memorial, Darksteel Forge, Eldrazi Monument, both swords, lightning greeves, mask of memory, erratic portal, crystal shard, skull clamp

Lands: thawing glaciers, strip mine/wasteland/ghost quarter/tectonic edge, deserted temple, charge lands, dustbowl, exotic orchard

White: Tithe is decent, but most decks have so many better white removal options that arent conditional. Adarkar Valk is good, but I know that as wrath happy as sen trips is, the card falls short. Austere Command, rocks out. Oblation is fun times on bribery/control magic effects.

Blue: The hard-on for land switching is better accomplished with annex and confiscate. Ophidian is really unimpressive in this meta, even Finkel ain't great. Rhystic Study and Honden are like heroin, once you've played with them you can't stop. People will not count mana and give you the rhystic cards just in case. Hinder is dickish, but great dick.

Black: Agreed all around, though you missed ancient craving.

Red: Also comet storm, rolling thunder and fan the flames. Bogardan Hellkite is damn good, and vicious shadows is ban worthy.

Green: All the mana fetching beside Reap and Sow is unnecessary. Tooth for Witness makes me sick, but its good.

Gold: Slave of Bolas, good god. Lavalanche, MechAkroma

[vultanphase]

Pretty sure he's talking about Tithe-Tithe, not Mana Tithe. With shocks and duals, it's a solid fixer for a non-green deck at one mana. It's not back-breakingly good, but it's basically "Draw two lands instead of one - and they're the best Plains in your deck".

I think I like Weathered Wayfarer over it, though, for utility.

[Chris]

-Armillary sphere is 2 for one easy mana fixing. I can't really see a reason not to play it instead of one of the lands in your deck unless you are cutting a lot of land already. In edh you can definitely take the small hit to tempo for greater card advantage and mana.

-I put darksteel forge because there are lots of different artifact decks like Arcum, Karn, Sharuum, and Memnarch if you'll allow him so I kind of classify it as a staple for those decks much like a gauntlet of power is a staple for a mono colored deck

-Eldrazzi monument I think should be a staple in most creature based decks since wraths are the main threat and you should have some form of recursion/token making for card advantage anyway to offset the upkeep cost.

-Adarkar Valkyrie is just a strong card that lets you reuse come into play abilities of your creatures and your opponents. Might not go in every deck but its never a bad card to have in an edh deck.

-I put the landswitching on the list because most decks have absolutely no way to deal with it once you take their power land. Annex/confiscate can get destroyed from o stones or any enchantment removal. The only way for you to get back a switched land is to destroy it yourself and recur it from your yard. Much harder to do.

-The green nonbasic land fetching is very important since almost every deck has some nonbasic land it likes to exploit for major increase in card advantage/mana (gaea's cradle, academy ruins, volrath's stronghold, serra's sanctum, kor haven/maze of ith, riptide lab the list goes on)

-Lastly Colin is correct and I'd play both over a land in my deck.